I can't get out of the driver's seat of the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray quickly enough. Only a handful of things, in either this world or the next, could convince me to willingly leap from behind the wheel of the newest heir to America's sports-car throne. Throw a hornet nest through the passenger window, and I'd tear the smokiest, most sideways path to the closest epinephrine supply before I'd abandon the cockpit. It's just that good.

But there, lounging in a gleaming line under the California sun, sit six excellent excuses to walk away from the lusty C7. Chevrolet wrangled one car from every generation of the Corvette's history, and they're all mine to drive.

There are no door handles. I'm about to throw a leg over the door when I see the car's handler reach inside and fiddle with a mechanism, popping the passenger lock with a deft touch. I manage to do the same without evoking too many embarrassing memories involving the complexities of certain articles of the female wardrobe.

It's a sea of red carpet and vinyl inside, and it all smells so damned perfect. Think your grandfather's basement: old car mixed with a dash of cigar.

I twist the key and the Blue Flame inline six takes its time stumbling to life. The idle smoothes out, and I drop the two-speed automatic into gear. The car lurches forward and we're off, nothing but a low, thin windshield frame between us and the rest of the world. It's so impossibly open that I can't stop laughing. Yes, it's slow as hell, and yes, it drives like a Thunderbird if a Thunderbird were a kit car, but who cares? This is fun.

The steering wheel has the approximate diameter of a Boeing 787 fuselage, and there's around 5,000 turns, lock to lock, but the manual drum brakes on all four corners feel solid and confident. And it looks so good. Everything about the car is as beautiful as it is haphazard.

Now this feels like a proper ancestor to the C7. There's still the sense that designers didn't quite have a grasp on how to build a sports car with this one. I was specifically told to be careful getting into the driver's seat, or the parking brake lever would shave the flesh off my shins. Noted. But oh, that engine. It's so easy to forget just how brilliant a big block can be, and the 427 remains at the head of its class.

For perspective, the '54 took 11 seconds to get to 60 mph. Nearly everything else on the modern road is quicker. That Nissan Versa in the lane next to you? Yeah, it'll paint your backside stoplight to stoplight. But this big beast does the dance in under five seconds, and it did it in 1966. I'd been careful with the C1, and I'm plodding about in the C2 until I come to my first legitimate straight. For a fleeting moment, my fear of breaking the car thinks it can stand up to my desire to mat the throttle and bang through the gears. It can't. I may never have the chance to pound on a '66 Corvette 427 again.

This car was built to be hammered, and it responds to my burying the throttle in second gear with a swell of torque that builds with exponential momentum. It's brilliantly unrefined. The cabin ignites with the sound of those big coffee can cylinders thrashing under hood as the needle in the tach swings past the skinny "50" stenciled onto the gauge face. I could do this all day.

The short throw from second to third seems at odds with the truck-like clutch travel. That pedal requires thighs built for kicking down doors. Then it hits me: those crazy bastards raced this car for 24 hours at Le Mans. I make a note to pour some out for them at lunch.

Flash forward six years and civilization has come to the Corvette. This is no longer just a fiberglass shell and a honkin' V8. The cabin feels somewhat modern with its recognizable steering wheel, big, square GM ignition key and climate control, but there's also the sense that this is the beginning of the end of the car's glory days. The specter of malaise hangs like a bad suit just at the edge of the C3's vision.

That notion's underscored by the 350-cubic-inch small block under the hood. It wheezes out 255 horsepower compared to the ludicrous 425 ponies from the 427 in the C2. The notchy four-speed feels like a blessed carryover, but the rest of the car is simply less dramatic and less special. Yes, 1972 wasn't exactly a great year for any car, but the Corvette took it straight on the chin.

I'm sorry, C3. I take it all back. This is the saddest Hot Wheels in the toy box. The red interior has returned, but looks more murdered hooker than sock hop. I press the button to move the power driver's seat forward and the beleaguered motor plays the same depressing tune as an overworked garage door opener. The big, over-stuffed bolsters make embarrassing fart noises as they drag across the transmission tunnel, making me wonder how no one ever told this car you only get one shot at a first impression.

Once underway, I notice a disturbing number of similarities between this machine and my family's old 1990 Suburban. Brake and steering feel, throttle response, and shifts from the four-speed automatic transmission all feel indistinguishable from the big workhorse. Tragically, engine output now slid to 240 hp, even while holding the line on displacement. There's a good swell of torque right off idle, but the engine falls on its face shortly thereafter.

Getting to 60 mph takes 6.3 seconds, nearly half a second quicker than the previous generation, but it feels slower. I'm going to start a charity solely devoted to supplying C4 Corvettes with superchargers. For just pennies a day, you can make a difference…

For the first time since the C2, its clear Chevrolet is serious about the Corvette. This car's lighter, more powerful, and faster than its predecessor, and it feels it. I don't care who you are, 4.1 seconds to 60 mph is righteous speed. The engine starts with all the appropriate drama, pipes barking and cabin shaking with the angry 5.7-liter V8 in the nose.

I'm shocked at how awkward this shift knob is. The big, square block atop the six-speed manual's shift lever looks like it was designed by someone who, by some miracle, had neither seen a human hand nor held another shifter. Maybe GM raises these goons from birth, or maybe they grow them in Chevette-shaped pods in the RenCen. It's like changing gears by 2x4. Still, you tend to forget that foible with the first punch of the throttle. This thing is quick.

The cursed "skip-shift" mechanism keeps me from pounding into second gear, dropping the transmission into fourth instead. What a buzzkill. Still, you can pick these cars up for less than the cost of Corolla these days. How batty is that? I'm already working on my three-point presentation to the wife.

I start laughing the instant I jump behind the wheel. The 2002 Malibu called, it would like its interior back. Yeah, yeah, it's cliché to rag on the C6 for its cabin, but holy hell is this thing bad compared to the new car. And that's the thing: the 2013 Corvette is still one of the best performance buys out there right now, but it's just demolished by the Stingray.

Interior design and materials aside, I'm shocked at how miserable the steering is on the 2013 machine. Over-assisted and numb, it has none of the tactile feedback of the C7. Still, this is a base car, and it's technically quicker than the Z06 I just stepped out of thanks to an extra 41 horsepower and an extra half-liter of displacement.

I overcook a roundabout entry and suddenly I'm met with a cold bucket of understeer that takes serious throttle application to overcome. This car is not a pig, but its younger sibling certainly makes it out to be.

Dealers must be dishing out serious cash on C6 Vettes hanging around their lots right now, but I'm not sure I could justify the purchase after knowing how excellent the C7 is in comparison.

Trying to sum this car up in a handful of paragraphs is like trying to write Teddy Roosevelt's biography in the same lines. Good luck, champ. The dude rode
a moose, and that's not even what he's famous for.

Open the door, slide inside and you're immediately overcome by the smell of leather. Not that Tahoe-grade crap in the C5, but legitimate, thick leather.
It's everywhere, from those excellently bolstered seats to the dash, the steering wheel and the shift lever. What isn't wrapped in hide is slathered in
real carbon fiber, and the driver gets an excellent steering wheel. Finally, the Corvette has an interior worthy of its performance.

And holy hell—the performance. The new fifth-generation small block V8 is all torque. GM says it produces the same torque an LS7 up to 4700 rpm, and as a
result, it's hard to pick a bad gear. There are seven of them, of course, and the extra cog does take some getting acquainted with. I found myself
accidentally downshifting to fourth instead of sixth. The active rev-match tech seems a bit overzealous, though, leaving me happier with my own sloppy
throttle blips, thank you very much.

It turns out that the Stingray's bevy of selectable drive modes make a visceral difference in how the machine performs, too. The jump to Sport or Track
mode is serious, aggressively firming up the ride, opening up the exhaust and stepping up throttle response.